With great pleasure we’d like to announce the winner of the SONOPEDIA Sound Design Competition hosted by Blastwave FX andPost Magazine. Congratulations to Weston Fonger, you will receive SONOPEDIA, The Encyclopedia of HD Sound Effects- a retail value of $3,999!! Runners up were Bob Hart and Erik Reimers. Check out the top three pieces below:

The Winning composition was designed by Weston Fonger, who currently resides in NYC. In his words, “A futuristic apocalypse reversion. It was created only using the supplied sound fx, Protools software, and an array of plug-ins.” What Academy Award winner Richard King had to say about Weston’s piece:

“[this piece]… gave me the strongest emotional reaction … It’s clear the sound designer was striving to tell a story – certainly an abstract one which the listener can interpret in any number of ways, but there’s a purposeful development to the sounds. The subtle moments are well done and pleasingly organic, with a very effective use of total silence in one transition, and the louder, denser sections retain their clarity. The sounds chosen stand out for their uniqueness and clarity and the mix is focused. Very good work!”

“[this piece] … conveyed great creativity from a sonic standpoint … additionally there is a clear understanding of the goal of the piece. The overall structure of a sales piece is to make the reveal of the subject of the piece the most exciting, which I feel he really did successfully.”

“Designing voices for creatures and robots is probably the most difficult kind of sound design there is. [Bot vs Bee] had a nice narrative arc, it was funny, and I’m guessing the designer had to twist the raw sounds quite a bit to achieve the final result.”

Thank you to all 68 sound designers who submitted entries. Also, a huge thank you to the judges who participated with lots of excitement. As Lon said, “I was impressed by all of the entries., fantastic that there is so much
talent out there…”

We’ll be posting more pieces soon, so don’t forget to check back!

Richard King

Warner Bros. supervising sound editor/sound designer Richard King, an Oscar-winner and multiple nominee, has worked on films such as The Prestige, War of the Worlds, Master and Commander (Oscar win) and most recently The Dark Knight.

Randy Thom

Randy Thom is the director of sound design at Skywalker Sound. The multiple Oscar-winner began working for Lucasfilm in 1979. His responsibilities as a sound designer and re-recording mixer include working with the director of a film to design the overall sound of the film and to fabricate specific sound effects.

Lon Bender

Oscar-winner (Braveheart) Lon Bender is supervising sound editor at Soundelux in Hollywood. Recent work includes The Blood Diamond, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination, The Bucket List, The Producers and the upcoming Defiance.